No More Free Calls to Buy a Savings Bond
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WASHINGTON — The Treasury Department said Wednesday it is scrapping a 4-month-old program that offered investors a 24-hour, toll-free telephone number for buying U.S. Savings Bonds with a credit card.
Investors used the program to buy $4.5 million in bonds from its inception on May 3 through the middle of last month.
When it was announced in April, Jerrold B. Speers, executive director of Treasury’s U.S. Savings Bonds division, predicted that sales would “surge as people learn they can buy bonds at any time, from any phone.”
However, in a prepared statement Wednesday, he said the program “proved not cost-effective” and will end Sept. 30.
Stephen Meyerhardt, a spokesman for the division, said the per-bond costs of selling bonds by telephone were more than the traditional methods of selling through banks and payroll deduction plans.
Customers may still use the toll-free line, 1-800-US-BONDS, to listen to a recording with rate and other information on the bonds.
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